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NEWS & LETTERS, October - November 2008
The anti-feminist Palin
[caption] On Sept. 13, in front of the Library in midtown Anchorage, over 1,400 people, in the biggest political rally ever held in Alaska, made it clear that they oppose Sarah Palin as their next Vice President.
In spite of the fact that John McCain is a misogynist who calls his wife sexist slurs in public, he is cynically trying to lure Hillary Clinton-type feminists by choosing Sarah Palin as his running mate. But Palin is no feminist because, like McCain, she holds positions that are harmful to women on issues like abortion and sex education.
As mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, she forced rape victims to pay for their own forensic exams, and, as governor, she has done little to combat the huge epidemic of violence against women in Alaska. And even though she would break a glass ceiling if she and McCain win the election, she was chosen on the basis of her gender not her qualifications. She is not knowledgeable enough to be Vice President, let alone President. She was also chosen because her theocratic views are extreme enough to appeal to religious right voters who had become apathetic about voting for Republicans who are not committed to their cause.
Palin has tried to claim the label of feminist by joining the anti-abortion group "Feminists for Life" (FFL) in 2006. FFL is a religious Right front group whose ultimate goal is to make abortion illegal. It uses feminist-sounding language but repeats the religious right's lies that all abortions are physically and emotionally harmful to women. FFL claims that no woman would ever choose to have an abortion--even for rape or health reasons--unless forced to by financial reasons or the pressures of society. It is lying when it claims to be the only group of "feminists" who support a woman's right to have a child and to be able to care for that child.
FFL explains away the absence on its website of information on, and campaigns to promote, sex education and birth control by stating that they focus on women who are already pregnant. It also calls them "preconception issues," implying that it expects all women to become mothers. It says its purpose is to concentrate on making resources available to pregnant women, but its childcare resources are only available to college students. It seems they pay lip service even to that modest goal because the main part of its "College Outreach Program" consists of sending speakers to campuses to persuade students that it is "feminist" to be anti-abortion. While some articles on its website state that working mothers face sexist discrimination, others steer mothers into leaving the workforce. FFL doesn't want to change society to help mothers, but to squeeze all women into a role of being stay-at-home mothers of many children.
Some have noted that, for Palin, fundamentalists have made an about-face over the issue of a mother of small children having a job, let alone holding public office. Palin is acceptable to the religious right because she is part of its attempt to infiltrate and co-opt feminism just as she is part of its stealth campaign to impose theocracy on this country.
--Adele
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